There has been a rise in violence against LGBTQetc. people since Trump's campaign started. The Human Rights Campaign has posted a detailed record of just some of the anti-LGBTQetc. actions and appointments that have been hostile to us. I like it because it points out that things like their attacks on the Affordable Care Act have a serious impact on LGBT people and it points out that attacks on other groups, Muslims, Latinos, etc. are attacks on us, as well. Here are some things from just the start of the Trump regime to some of the latest.
- Less than two hours after Trump and his virulently anti-LGBTQ activist Vice President Mike Pence were sworn into office, all mentions of LGBTQ issues were removed from the official White House webpage.
- Trump nominated Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Gorsuch has a long and troubling career opposing civil rights, including for LGBTQ people.
- Vice President Pence cast the tie-breaking vote to confirm Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, after all Democratic Senators and two Republican Senators voted against her confirmation. DeVos' family foundation funded major anti-LGBTQ orgnazations and campaigns. Her anti-equality record was denounced by major civil rights organizations, including HRC, which actively worked to stop her confirmation.
- On a party line vote, Senate Republicans vote to confirm Jeff Sessions as the U.S. Attorney General. HRC and civil rights organization across the country protested Sessions anti-equality record from when he served as Alabama’s Attorney General and as a U.S. Senator.
- Sessions' very public record of hostility towards the LGBTQ community and federal legislation designed to protect vulnerable Americans makes it nearly impossible to believe that he will vigorously enforce this statute that he worked so hard to defeat. – Judy Shepard, mother of Matthew Shepard who was murdered by a hate crime
- The Senate confirmed anti-equality Tom Price as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), who has spent years in Congress trying to repeal the ACA and opposing every LGBTQ equality measure.
- The Trump Administration received hundreds of letters from the parents of transgender children in opposition to the rescinding of protections for transgender students.
- Under the direction of Sessions and DeVos, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education revoked the Obama Administration’s guidance detailing school protections for transgender students under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
- The Senate confirmed equality opponent Ben Carson as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Carson has made clear he opposes equality for LGBTQ people. His harmful rhetoric has included equating marriage equality with bestiality, opposed laws that protect LGBTQ Americans from discrimination, suggested transgender people be required to use separate bathrooms, and joked that same-sex couples might have their wedding cakes poisoned by anti-equality bakers.
- Trump’s HUD -- led by anti-LGBTQ proponent Secretary Ben Carson -- took two steps backwards on protecting LGBTQ people. First, they withdrew a requirement for emergency shelters receiving HUD funding to post information about LGBTQ people’s rights to access the shelter safely and in accordance with their gender identity. Then, they withdrew critical data collection and evaluation guidelines for a homelessness prevention initiative targeting LGBTQ youth.
. . .
- HRC sent a FOIA request to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in response to news that the Trump-Pence White House and USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue are attacking LGBTQ youth by pressuring the national 4-H youth organization to rescind a policy welcoming LGBTQ participants.
I will point out that a lot of the worst and most violent and most damaging discrimination suffered by LGBTQ people is visited on us when we are youngest, in school, of school age. What straight people might see as less serious violence and discrimination is, actually, some of the most damaging so the hatred expressed through people like DeVos is some of the worst.
Other groups who track violence and discrimination against LGBTQ people have pointed out one of the things that has been done under Trump is to stop collecting information about violence and discrimination against LGBT people so it's not possible to know what the actual figures on that are though there is every reason to believe it is higher than the private groups can find out with their own resources.
The MAGA hat is a symbol of Trumpism and Trumpism is actively and openly hostile to the rights of LGBTQ people, Women, Black People, Latinos, Muslims, etc. It, along with the Confederate flag, symbols of haters who have a history of violence against anyone who isn't part of their hate cult. Anyone who is in any of the groups they have targeted with hate has every right to consider a gang of White MAGA wearing boys to be a danger to them. I don't expect their supporters to get that, they wouldn't be Trump supporters or those diminishing the impact of Trumpian hatred if they did get it.
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